11. The Conditions of Slavery in Medieval Mesopotamia Sparked a Massive Revolt
Medieval Mesopotamia was rocked by the Zanj (Arabic for “Blacks”) Revolt of 869 – 883, which began as a rebellion of black bondsmen in southern Iraq against slavery. Thousands of African slaves had toiled for generations in massive field projects to drain the region’s salty marshes. The work was backbreaking, the slaves were underfed and brutally treated, and jammed by the thousands into crowded labor camps. The inhumane conditions bred resentment, and the slave camps became powder kegs that just needed a spark to go off.
The spark was provided in 869 by an obscure Arab or Persian mystic poet named Ali ibn Muhammad, who asserted that God had instructed him to lead a crusade of liberation. The rebels were joined by other slaves, and the uprising eventually became a generalized revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate when freemen joined in. By the time the dust had settled and it was all over, hundreds of thousands – or even millions by some estimates – had been killed, and the Abbasid Caliphate had been fatally weakened.